


everything is (will be) okay

by ImBadWithWords



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Secret Identities Make Life Hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImBadWithWords/pseuds/ImBadWithWords
Summary: The Parker family has had more than it's fair share of bad days, but the universe still won't let up. At least they have each other.They'll always have each other.





	everything is (will be) okay

In Peter’s mind, there was a difference between  _ murderous  _ and  _ murderer. _ The Vulture was the former. Violent, threatening, willing to do whatever it took to achieve his end goal. But he’d never  actually  _ killed _ anyone.

Similarly, even though Peter had faced death over and over (and over) again, he’d only once watched someone die. He told himself it’d be different if he ever saw it again during patrol because it wouldn’t be his first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be as personal, and he believed it. He saw all sorts of messed up, scary stuff, and only a fraction of it was as common and normal as death.

So why was the sight of Toomes training a gun on one of his own men so terrifying?

“Hey, hey, hey, take it easy!” Peter said, his panicked voice echoing around the Vulture’s warehouse. Vulture’s lackey nodded frantically and pointed at him.

“Listen to the kid!” he pleaded. “C’mon, Adrian, we’ve worked together for years, think this through!”

“I have, Dodge,” Toomes said. He sounded remorseful, almost. He sighed and shook his head. “You’ve been a good partner. I’d even consider you a friend. But the kid’s gotta learn that I’m not someone you wanna mess with.”

He pulled the trigger.

A deafening  _ bang _ rocketed through the building and the sound sent pain arching through Peter’s brain. His hands clapped down over his ears and he doubled over, gritting his teeth. His head swam and it was a few seconds before he was able to straighten.

When he did, his gaze locked on the blood.

Toomes had shot Dodge in the chest. The bullet had gone straight through and blood quickly seeped from underneath Dodge’s still figure on the concrete floor. Bile burned Peter’s throat.

Dodge’s fingers twitched. Peter watched in horror as his hands flitted up to press against the hole in his chest. His low moan of pain pushed Peter into action.

He sprinted the few yards between him and the man and dropped to his knees. The metallic scent of blood filled his nose and he choked, but laid his trembling hands over the wound anyway.

“It’s--it’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. Dodge looked at him with malice in his eyes and Peter flinched.

“Why couldn’t you--” He coughed, the action wracking his body and sending blood dribbling down his chin. “m-mind your own… damn... b-business…” The air turned to sand in Peter’s lungs.

“I-I-- God, I’m sorry, I-I’m so sorry, I don’t-- I don’t know what to do, I’m so sorry,” he babbled. It wasn’t supposed to feel personal, but it was still so horribly, heart-breakingly familiar. The stench of copper. The stickiness between his fingers. The unrelenting panic that rendered him  _ useless.  _ The man’s black t-shirt morphed into Uncle Ben’s favorite flannel. The floor shifted into sidewalk. The fluorescent warehouse lights became pale, accusing moonlight. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do--”

Dodge’s eyes glazed over, but Peter didn’t see them. He had been crying, that night, but he couldn’t cry now, too overwhelmed with the horrifying realization that it was happening  _ again,  _ he had let it happen-- _ made _ it happen-- _ again.  _ It was his fault. It was his fault, it was his fault it was his fault it was his faultitwashisfaultitwashisfaultitwashisfaultitwas--

“What you’re gonna  _ do,”  _ Toomes growled, snapping Peter out of his spiraling thoughts, “is get out of here. Stay away from me and my boys. Stay outta the way and outta trouble. Because next time you cost me a score, I’m coming after  _ you. _ Don’t think I’ll show you mercy a second time just ‘cause you’re a kid.”

Peter looked up at him, his Spider-Man goggles distorting the villain’s face into something grotesque. His shoulder’s were still heaving with panicked breaths. Toomes leaned down and bared his teeth.

_ “Go.” _

Peter ran.

He threw out a webline and hurtled through the skylight, rolling onto the roof. He scrambled to his feet and bolted to the building next door, then the next, and repeated until he was deep enough into the city to start web slinging. He flew along the city streets, heart pounding, mind racing, begging for the adrenaline crash that would make him too exhausted to think. He was halfway home before he remembered he was covered in someone else’s blood.

He had to double back for his street clothes. They were stashed in an alleyway half a mile from the warehouse where-- from Vulture’s warehouse, and despite his shaking fingers he managed to be changed and on the subway back home within minutes.

Every click and shudder from the subway car made Peter flinch violently. The scant occupants of the late-night train shot him concerned looks and he shrunk deeper in on himself. A woman’s eyes widened when she looked at his hands, and Peter glanced down and saw they were still streaked with the drying blood that had soaked through his gloves. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

His breathing had mostly evened by the time he’d reached his stop and he strode, shoulders hunched, away from the platform. He was going home. He was going home, where he could be safe, where May was safe, where nobody got hurt and everything was okay. Everything was okay. Everything was okay.

_ Yeah, right. _

He ducked into a bodega across the street from his apartment building and bought a bottle of water with some coins he found at the bottom of his backpack. He used it to scrub his hands clean in the parking lot next door before going inside.

It took him six tries to slot the key into the knob, only to realize the door was already unlocked. His eyebrows furrowed and he swung it open.

May, sitting with her legs tucked under her on the couch, looked over at him and smiled.

“Hi, honey,” she said. When Peter didn’t move past the threshold, her mouth dipped into a frown. “Is everything okay, Peter?”

Peter blinked. “I thought you were supposed to be at work.”

It was late, sure, but she was always working late these days. Her second job at the diner meant she usually wasn’t home until almost midnight.

May looked away, a gentle huff of frustration breaking her calm demeanor. She forced a smile onto her face. Peter hated that smile, the one meant to reassure him that everything was fine when it really, really wasn’t. He was seeing it more and more lately.

“They had to let me go,” she said softly. The tense energy humming through Peter’s limbs dissipated.

“What?” he said, walking inside and closing the door behind him. “That’s… that’s ridiculous, how could they let  _ you--” _

“Peter, honey, it’s not a big deal. It’s a small restaurant and I was the newest hire. It was only fair.” 

“But it’s not--!” He cut himself off. Took a breath. “It’s  _ not _ fair. You work so hard and you  _ deserved _ to be able to keep your job.”

“It’s not always about what we deserve,” she murmured, and Peter got the feeling she meant more than just the job. He sighed. He tossed his backpack under the foyer table.

“I-I’ve been thinking about starting to work after school,” he confessed after a moment. “Y’know, get some money so I can start to help out.”

“Peter, don’t you dare.” May looked at him hard, straightening in her seat. “Right now you need to be concentrating on school, and friends, and having fun. Nothing else. If you want to get a job so you can have a little more spending money, that’s great, but I’m the adult and finances are my responsibility.”

Peter opened his mouth to argue, but saw something in her face. Something begging him to stay young and unburdened as long as he could. He remembered the warehouse and the growing pool of blood and felt guilty.

May moved to stand. “Did you eat? You were at the library pretty late. I’ll make you something.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, hurrying to get her to sit back down. “I’m fine.”

May pursed her lips and reached up, thumb running over his cheek. She held his gaze. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

Peter tried to flash a fake smile, but even then the gunshot was echoing in his head. It was apparently pretty transparent because Aunt May pulled him down onto the couch beside her.

“Guess we’ve both had rough days, huh, tough guy?” she said. Peter leaned into her side.

“Something like that,” he sighed.

She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close like she used to when he was little. Her fingers ran through his hair and he felt the knot in his chest unwinding.

May picked up the remote and searched through the titles in their DVR and Peter smiled when she settled on an episode of The X-Files.

He made it through twenty minutes of Mulder and Scully investigating the latest case file before his eyelids started to droop. May--the traitor--tugged the blanket off the couch behind them and draped it over his shoulders. Scully was refuting another of Mulder’s insane theories when Peter fell asleep.

 

 

A gunshot.

Peter startled upright, eyes wide. His heart pounded against his ribs and he gasped. The blanket over him tangled around his legs and he struggled, desperately fighting against some unknown attacker as two separate bodies, two separate pools of blood flickered in front of his face.

Another gunshot sounded and a hand landed on his shoulder and he flinched away, whirling around to face the threat.

May.

Peter’s chest heaved as he took in her concerned face, the way she jerked back her outstretched hand. He glanced over at the TV and saw Scully rushing through an empty building, gun raised. He looked back at May and she hurried to mute the show.

“Peter…” she breathed. He was pressed up against the other arm of the couch. “Peter, honey, it’s okay. It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Peter swallowed around the lump in his throat and tried to relax. He’d had plenty of freak-outs and panic attacks before; he could stave this one off so she wouldn’t worry.

“Sorry,” he rasped, and he winced at his “definitely-not-okay-over-here” voice. May inched closer and laid a hand on his knee.

“You have  _ nothing _ to be sorry for,” she insisted. She pressed her lips together. “Are you…? Do you want to talk about it?”

Peter shook his head.

“That’s okay,” she continued. She began rubbing soothing circles against his knee. They didn’t meet each other’s eyes for a minute until May looked up. “Do you need a hug?”

Peter nodded.

He leaned forward and May wrapped him in her arms, tangling her fingers in the hair at the back of his head. Peter buried his face into her shoulder and let out the shaky breath he had been holding. She murmured gentle reassurances in his ear, a litany of “you’re okay”s and “I’ve got you, honey”s. He encircled his arms around her middle and squeezed as hard as he dared. They rocked, back and forth, slow and comforting and reminiscent of when she used to coax him back to sleep in the early days when he first came to stay with her.

“I love you, May,” he said against the fabric of her favorite sweater.

“I love you too, Petey,” she said into his tousled, messy hair.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like May Parker is a lady who likes to use pet names all the time. Peter is her favorite person to drown in affectionate little monikers, especially when he's having a hard time.


End file.
